On the sidelines, in the team huddle and on the roster, everyone is the same. Players put aside their differences to compete, pushing each other and providing an unapologetic place for all, including those from Team IMPACT.
A number of Macalester athletic teams have signed players from Team IMPACT, a national nonprofit that matches kids with chronic and life-threatening conditions with collegiate athletic teams.
“They become an honorary member of your team,” Sarah Solomon ’26 said. “They get a jersey with a number, they have a signing day, just like any other athlete would. And then it is up to each individual team what they do afterwards.”
Team IMPACT kids go to practices, games and team bonding events. They are invited into the locker room for pre-game speeches and post-game talks. They are as much a part of the team as any other player.
Solomon is a part of Team IMPACT’s fellowship program, alongside Theo Darci-Maher ’27 and Mary Daley ’28. Darci Maher arrived at Macalester already applied to be a fellow. He discovered the fellowship through his family; his cousin, Lucy, has cerebral palsy and was matched with Team IMPACT on the Boston College lacrosse team that would later go on to win the national championship with Lucy on the roster.
“That’s what made me think, ‘Oh, wait, I could really do this from the other end of things,’” Darci-Maher said. “It’s been powerful to have this work that’s for [Lucy], but also for any kid like her, because I’ve seen that experience firsthand.”
The fellows work to program events for matches on campus and in the area. They attend the Team IMPACT summit every year and collaborate with fellows from across the country. This year, Macalester was awarded the Division III 2025 Fellowship Campus of the Year alongside the University of Minnesota, who won in the Division I category.
“We didn’t need an award to do the work, and we didn’t do the work to get an award,” Solomon said. “But knowing that the type of work that we were able to put out was still meaningful [and] people notic[ing] was a really powerful experience.”
This achievement was in part due to collaboration between the two schools on Fall Fest, which the fellows intend to make an annual event between Macalester and the University of Minnesota Team IMPACT matches.
“One of my biggest goals is to increase the amount of community engagement [and] how much [the] families know each other in the area, because there are actually a fair amount of families matched with Team IMPACT in the Twin Cities, and it’s not that big of a place,” Darci-Maher said. “I want them to be a network for each other.”
This emphasis on community and belonging is apparent in every aspect of the fellows’ work. The fellows travel to regional hospitals and present at support groups and local events to spread awareness about the program to potential matches. They share their work with teams on campus, presenting at Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and coaches meetings and plan to attend the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference SAAC conference.
“Usually at Mac, it’s easy to convince people that it’s a cool thing to do and they should sign up with their team,” Darci-Maher said. “We’ve done presentations to teams specifically who we know have expressed interest, or we think they’d be a good fit.”
The program has a history of over 10 years with Macalester, with football being the first team to match with Team IMPACT around 2014. Softball and swim and dive followed before a lull in matches until women’s soccer coach Madeline Buckley arrived at Macalester in 2022.
“When I got the job at Macalester, my first thing I did besides fill out the HR paperwork, was I emailed Team IMPACT and their Midwest rep, and I said, ‘I really want to get matched,’” Buckley said.
Buckley’s relationship with Team IMPACT goes back to her time as a student-athlete at William Smith College. She did the work of a fellow before the program existed, befriending and leading community events and awareness for Courtney Wagner, a girl four years her junior, who was diagnosed with brain cancer.
“It’s an opportunity to give kids that social network that they desperately need and quickly lose when they’re diagnosed with cancer. Their peers don’t really know how to handle it and are on their own high school journey, and find it difficult to meet the social-emotional needs of a friend their age diagnosed with cancer,” Buckley said. “So that’s where I felt like I could really help [Wagner].”
Wagner joined the team in Buckley’s first year, and two years later, the pair were roommates for the D-III national championships which William Smith ultimately took home. Buckley contributed to the title and Wagner contributed to Buckley’s success.
“I’ve always kept [Wagner’s legacy] alive in my work and my players have known about [Wagner], and while they didn’t meet her, I think it’s important to me to keep her legacy alive through our partnership with Team IMPACT,” Buckley said. “I want more teams to be matched up with Team IMPACT, and there to be more kids like [Wagner] who join our teams and get to be a part of something special.”
That future of the program rests upon the base Solomon, Darci Maher and Daley are building at Macalester. In their time, multiple teams gained Team IMPACT players or have begun the process of getting matched.
“If we come back in five to 10 years to watch a soccer game, we want to see [Team IMPACT] matches on the sidelines,” Solomon said. “We want to see generations of fellows to come, generations of teams being matched and it’s a part of the Macalester community identity, especially the Macalester sports community identity, which I think sometimes can be fractured from the identity of Macalester as a whole and that identity of community, work and engagement that Macalester is so proud of.”
This community-oriented identity has clear effects on players and teams fighting for success in and out of competition.
“If you look at people who have won championships recently across the country, so many of them have Team IMPACT matches,” Solomon said. “This is the kind of program that creates more success for sports, and this is the kind of program that proves if we give ourselves to others and we show compassion for others, we will improve as people, as athletes, and that applies in sports a lot, but it also applies in other aspects of life.”
Athletes get to be a part of something bigger than themselves and learn what it means to be there for each other in times of triumph and hardship. Their skillset applies to the social-emotional needs of the Team IMPACT players.
“Being an athlete brings you a certain amount of empathy, because you experience struggle, and you know what it’s like to fail,” Solomon said. “When you think about it and reflect on it, you’re able to interact with people with a certain level of grace that I think is really beautiful.”
The nature of a sports team allows for this sort of reflection and consequent relationship with people who need the uplifting support that teammates can provide.
“It’s difficult to think about bringing hard to your space,” Buckley said. “But more importantly, we need to be there for kids and families that are facing the hard. I couldn’t change [Wagner’s] diagnosis [or] prognosis. The reality was that she was going to face a hard battle with cancer. I am not a doctor. I can’t cure cancer. What I can do is make her life as fulfilling and rewarding as possible. And that’s what I look back on, is what was in our control, as her teammates, when hard things happen.”
And that’s the role Team IMPACT and the participating teams play in the lives of matches.
“[It’s] just a group of people that show unconditional care for them and remind them that they matter, especially when they’re in a place where they feel so different from the kids around them, it’s a place where none of that matters, because you’re all a team,” Solomon said. “That’s something that’s really special about sports is that idea of setting identity aside so that you can win and compete.”
